>Setting up a suitable build system. Writing some unit tests for the code. Creating a skeleton of the models that are to be developed. Designing nice mock-ups or logos. Creating animations or graphics for presentations.I actively advise students against joining labs like this and consider the whole enterprise unethical. I raise concerns whenever I'm reviewing grant proposals by folks who run their labs like this. I've successful nuked funding proposals because the work plan included language like this.
Want a devops engineer? Hire a devops engineer ("systems scientist" or so on). Want a graphic designer? Hire a graphic designer.
But DO NOT lie to impressionable youth by telling them that you are admitting them into a PhD program to be your apprentice on a research project and then proceed to pay them $30K/yr (with marginal benefits) for uninteresting and unexceptional engineering and design work. They are taking a huge financial opportunity cost to work on uniquely high leverage problems. Maintaining your research group's build system is not what they signed up for.
> ‘I’m a researcher, not a(n) X,’ with X∈ {software developer, designer, marketing person, artist, …}
Sure, but here's the rub. What does everything in that set have in common? They make at least 2x+ the average PhD student and have much better benefits.
If you want a "force multiplier" person in your lab, do your job: get a grant and pay a fair price for that sort of labor. PhD students are NOT ∈ {software developer, designer, marketing person, artist, …}. If they were, you'd be paying quite a bit more and/or getting far less exceptional candidates.
I actively advise students against joining labs like this and consider the whole enterprise unethical. I raise concerns whenever I'm reviewing grant proposals by folks who run their labs like this. I've successful nuked funding proposals because the work plan included language like this.
Want a devops engineer? Hire a devops engineer ("systems scientist" or so on). Want a graphic designer? Hire a graphic designer.
But DO NOT lie to impressionable youth by telling them that you are admitting them into a PhD program to be your apprentice on a research project and then proceed to pay them $30K/yr (with marginal benefits) for uninteresting and unexceptional engineering and design work. They are taking a huge financial opportunity cost to work on uniquely high leverage problems. Maintaining your research group's build system is not what they signed up for.
> ‘I’m a researcher, not a(n) X,’ with X∈ {software developer, designer, marketing person, artist, …}
Sure, but here's the rub. What does everything in that set have in common? They make at least 2x+ the average PhD student and have much better benefits.
If you want a "force multiplier" person in your lab, do your job: get a grant and pay a fair price for that sort of labor. PhD students are NOT ∈ {software developer, designer, marketing person, artist, …}. If they were, you'd be paying quite a bit more and/or getting far less exceptional candidates.